We’ve recently told you about the new loyalty program Chestsfrom the most famous poker room in the world. It has been clear back then that the trend we could follow tracing the activity of the company didn’t promise any good news for the true poker fans. The worst predictions have come to life as Spin & Go Max turned out to be an analogue of BLAST at 888Poker – spin-n-go tournaments with the function of forced all-in.

So let’s run through the major moments:

1. The number players in the tournaments varies from three to eight. This is a random number. The more players there are, the higher is the potential payout.

2. Buy-ins are at $1, $3, $7 and $15.

3. Rake is 9%, 9%, 8% and 7% respectively.

4. In the beginning of each round there are three potential winnings (for instance of $3, $2.5 and $1.5) one of which will be randomly selected by the winner in the end of the tournament.

5. Each tournament (depending on the number of players) consist of 20 hands and then forced all-in comes in force.

6. If the winnings are quite big, the winner will have an opportunity to take guaranteed average cash prize – to make a cash out.

7. Maximal potential win in each of the tournaments is х10,000.

What is it all about? Let’s analyze together

If Spin and Go can be a rather hardcore highly-varienced hyper turbo format that can be beaten, Spin & Go Max is the extreme for of it. It is the lottery that oftentimes rewards players with minimal payouts. This format can’t be beaten by a professional player due to the absence of logics in it. The discipline that can’t bring money in the long run under any circumstances.

Yes, when Spin & Go was first introduced back in 2014, people told the same things about it, but now one doesn’t need any math at all to prove this point.

Firstly, there is a wild rake of 9%. Secondly, only 20 hands (!) to outplay your opponents. Thirdly, the colossal impact of random factor: the number of players, the prize size and random selection of this prize in the end of the tournament.

Let’s dive into figures

The official web site has all the info of probabilities. To begin with, the chances of getting into long and short tables. Regardless of buy-in, in most cases the players would participate in 4-max – 30% of all time, 5-max – 25%, 3-max – 20%. Long tables are the rarest.

Now dew words about payout structure and the payouts. Minimal winnings regardless of the number of the players at the tables is x2-x3 on average. This means that even if there are 8 players at the table, potential payout for the tournament with $1 buy-in can be around $3.50 for the first place and $1.50 for the second one. Easy calculations give us $5 for eight players.

Jackpot hit probability - 0,0001% (one chance out of million). Shall we even begin to explain that the probability is extremely low.

What do players think about it

New format Spin & Go Max was heavily criticized by the regulars. Here is what twoplustwo write of it:

“The thing that really sucks – blinds structure. In used to be 20, 30, 40, 60, 80. And it is 20, 40, 60, 80, 100 in these tournaments. So they are tough to beat. This is extremely boring as well. Who would like to play with 12.5 BB without antes all the time. It is like 50/100 level in “turbo” tournaments with stack of 1,500”.

This moment is really important. Blinds increase faster (much faster) and that makes random even a bigger factor.

Some players began to “protect” the format with their favorite point for the cases like this one: no one make you play this format, you are free to play other games. That is a really poor justification though and not the strongest point, unfortunately:

“PokerStars earned their reputation for years and they always offered the games that could be beaten – with and without rakeback. They’ve always corrected rake when they had to and protected regulars and recreational players. But this format is an abuse of the rep they had. Many amateurs will feel themselves cheated after getting to all the details and realizing they don’t have a single chance to earn some money here.

…Poker has always been opposed to casino games, where one is unable to get profit in the long run. You have always known that being smart you are able to reach big. Amaya wipe their asses with all this causing irreparable damage to poker as a whole. In addition to that, it makes harder to prove the point that poker is a game of skill in legislative terms to some countries. This becomes nearly impossible with these formats.”

More interesting and useful articles from the world of poker you can read in our blog. Also search for poker clubs in the country or city, get to know about upcoming poker tournaments or cash games at PokerDiscover.com portal.

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